cause of violence

Insight into the Violent Mind

Both glamorizing and demonizing violence help us avoid having to understand the violent mind. We should enter the violent person’s subjective world, not just in order to be able to offer treatment, but also to anticipate the nature of the risks they embody both to themselves and to society. ~ Peter Fonagy, “Towards a Developmental… Read more »

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Insight into Extremism and the Terrorist Mentality

What causes prejudice, religious wars, terrorism and genocide? In fact, what are the psychodynamics behind extremism, absolutism and all insidious forms of polarization? On some level, the answers all relate to human beings’ inherent fear of death and their need for psychological defenses to deny or ease the endemic pain of the human condition. The… Read more »

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The Making of a Murderer

Years ago, when I was in the process of creating a violence assessment scale, I visited a series of high-security prisons to interview men found guilty of murder and other violent crimes. As I sat down with each inmate, the first question I always asked was, “How did you come to be a violent person?”… Read more »

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The Deadly Recession: Dangers of a Down Economy

I woke up the other day to the awful news about the shooting outside the Empire State Building. As various news media began breaking more details, a single biographic fact of the gunman was repeated: He had lost his job. As Mayor Bloomberg put it, “A man who had been fired from his job about… Read more »

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Video: Interviews with Renowned Violence Expert Dr. James Gilligan

In this exclusive PsychAlive video series, Dr. James Gilligan talks about what triggers violent behavior and how to treat violent individuals. Watch the full series of interviews here Order PsychAlive’s DVD Interviews with Dr. James Gilligan: In this DVD, Dr. James Gilligan discusses the developmental roots of violence, such as the psychological effects of childhood neglect… Read more »

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